Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/285

 life with a half smile sadder than tears. Was this the same Therese that he had heard swearing vengeance on her brother's head over her dead lover's body? Was this the fever-stricken woman who had poured into his ears the story of her broken life,—the would-be suicide he had saved from the river's fierce tide? Had she, in truth, been maddened by her grief, and was he seeing for the first time the real Therese in this dignified and beautiful woman? He asked himself these questions as he looked at her, little guessing that in himself had lain the power which had wrought the wonderful transformation.

Sara Harden was waiting for him too, very pale and pretty in her soft white morning wrapper. She asked him no question, though she saw the carriage at the door laden with his luggage.

He took her hand and said: "Dear friend, good-by. Thank you for what you have done for—for mademoiselle; she will never forget it, I am sure. I am going to put her on the steamer which sails in an hour for France, and then I am going, it is right that you should know,—I am going to Thebes. They have sent a call for doctors—"

"To Thebes!" she cried, her face turning white as her dress. "Philip, do you know that for you, almost a stranger to this climate, that